With Victor Martinez still out for Tigers, DL not viable option, skipping All-Star Game might be

Detroit Tigers designated hitter Victor Martinez reacts after chest bumping pitcher Max Scherzer in the dugout during the first inning of a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox in Detroit, Sunday, June 8, 2014. Martinez has missed six of the last eight games with soreness in his side.
CARLOS OSORIO — The Associated Press

DETROIT >> When the Tigers played the Los Angeles Dodgers the first time in April, the question was how to keep designated hitter Victor Martinez in the lineup.

Now the question is when Martinez might return to the lineup, if at all before the All-Star break.

He missed his fourth straight game Wednesday vs. the Dodgers, still suffering from a sore right side, and is no lock to play in the first-half ending series in Kansas City.

“It’s definitely a consideration. No, we haven’t made any decision. I talked to him today, and he said he felt better today, which is a good sign,” Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said Wednesday morning.

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“But if we get to a point where it’s Friday, and he hasn’t played, really, what’s the upside in taking a chance on playing him Saturday and Sunday, when you have four days off right behind that? We’ll have to make that decision at some point, but we haven’t made it yet.”

So much for figuring out how to keep VMart in the lineup, like they had to early on.

Martinez caught for the only two times this season on that early road swing that included the trip to L.A.

“Well, in L.A. and San Diego, we had to kind of juggle Victor behind home plate, and we moved Miggy (Miguel Cabrera) over to third. Which certainly wasn’t the end of the world, and the National League game certainly isn’t foreign to me, since I spent the majority of my years playing in that league,” Ausmus said at the start of the Dodgers series. “Quite frankly, I’d like to have Victor healthy and play our rules — because then we have our regular DH in there. But I don’t know that it makes a huge difference.

“If Victor was healthy it would be a huge difference. But without Victor healthy, we still feel like we’re kind of mixing and matching a little bit.”

J.D. Martinez has been the DH in four of the seven games Victor Martinez has missed, while Torii Hunter did it the other three games.

“Only Victor Martinez can DH. It’s a lot of time in between at-bats. You’ve got a lot of time to figure out what happened with your previous swing and you come up and analyze and you do different things like that,” Hunter said. “But DHing is so boring. It’s terrible boring.”

With only a four-game set in Kansas City following the Dodgers series prior to the All-Star break, it doesn’t really behoove the Tigers to put Martinez on the disabled list.

“Because of the timeline, and the All-Star break coming up right now, it’s been broached, but it’s not really been considered,” Ausmus said.

Really, there’s nobody waiting in the wings at Triple-A Toledo that’s going to enable the Tigers to fill in better than they are with J.D. Martinez and Hunter manning the DH spot while Victor Martinez gets treatment on his side.

In fact, it would probably cause more trouble than it was worth, if they had to make a 40-man roster move to bring someone up.

The best medicine will be just resting it.

It’s possible that rest could continue through the remaining games before the All-Star break.

But could the Tigers have Martinez skip playing in the game, to continue resting until the start of the second half? Possible.

“Victor and myself and Dave (Dombrowski, the team’s president and general manager) will obviously be involved in the discussion, (head trainer) Kevin Rand,” Ausmus said. “Victor’s been chosen to be an All-Star. He’s going to probably go regardless of whether he can play or not, I would imagine. But in terms of playing the game, I think Victor understands that it’s more important to play the season than to play the All-Star Game. The honor is being selected and he’s more than deserving to be on the All-Star team. But if he’s not healthy to play, or even if he plays in the Kansas City series or even the Dodgers series or both, it might be a situation where we still might be cautious during the All-Star Game because we don’t want something happening there. But we’ll just have to wait and see how he feels.”

About the Author

Detroit Tigers beat writer for The Oakland Press in Pontiac, Michigan. Mowery has spent 18 years covering sports, from preps to pros. He’s been honored with more than 25 awards for writing. Reach the author at matt.mowery@oakpress.com
or follow Matthew B. on Twitter: @MatthewBMowery.